1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of communication networks and contact lists generated for use in communication networks. In particular, in addition to static contact lists, group lists may be dynamically generated using tags that define additional attributes of one or more contacts in the contact list.
2. Statement of the Problem
A user of a communication device (or handset, such as a cellular phone) is commonly able to define a contact list for use in placing calls, sending text messages, sending emails, etc. The contact list includes a plurality of contacts, which may be people, businesses, etc, that are defined by the user and available to the user to initiate communication. An entry in the contact list typically includes a contact identifier, which may be a real name, a nickname, a photograph, an email address, etc, of a contact (e.g., a person or entity). The entry also typically includes contact information, such as one or more telephone numbers (i.e., a home number, a mobile number, a business number, etc), an email address, a URL, etc. When the user of the communication device wants to communicate with a contact on his/her contact list, the user may select that contact from the list and initiate communication without having to re-enter the telephone number or other information into the device.
A contact list may be stored on the device or in a network server. When the contact list is stored on the device, a memory element stores the contact list and the list is usually only available to the user when operating the device. When the contact list is stored on a network server, the contact list is generally part of a network address book service offered by the service provider. A network address book allows a user to add people to the contact list much like the contact list on a communication device. The network address book may also provide a network presence for contacts in the contact list. The network presence indicates the status of a party or the communication capabilities of the party for communicating. The network presence for a party may include the device or devices of the party, such as a cell phone, a PDA, etc. The network presence may further include services subscribed to or available to the party, such as Instant Messaging (IM), Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC), email, etc. The network presence may further include the status of the party, such as mood, location, etc. Because the network address book is stored on the network in a centralized server, the address book is available to applications on multiple devices of the user, such as a cell phone, a PDA, a laptop computer, etc.
The contact lists are generated by a user entering each individual contact into the list. The contact lists are defined by file format standards, so the information that may be stored in the contact lists is limited to the applicable standard. For example, vCard is a file format standard for electronic business cards, which may be adopted for contact lists. The vCard format allows for a name, an address, a phone number(s), a URL(s), a logo, a photograph, etc. Unfortunately, because the format of the contact list is defined by the standards, the user is very much limited as to what type of information may be stored for each contact. A user may want to include additional personal information with his/her contacts, but is not able to because of the standardized format of the contact list. It would be desirable to give users the ability to store additional information about contacts that is not allowed by standardized formats.
Another present limitation of contact lists is that the list is merely a collection of information entered by the user or a representative of the user, such as a company administrator for a user's company contact list. If a user would like to identify contacts that share common attributes or interests, the user would have to manually search through the contacts one by one to identify these contacts. It would be desirable to give users the ability to dynamically generate sub-groups of the contact list that share common attributes instead of merely relying on the overall contact list.